July 18, 2014

I'm really conflicted about this. I've been close to talking about it twice, and I find myself drawn back to it a third time, and I'm going to add that up to mean I've got to puzzle out the strange attraction, not of the 42-Year-Old Women but of this particular 55/56-year-old man writing about the 42-year-old woman... writing in Esquire about writing about the 42-year-old woman.

Instapundit wrote: "ADVICE TO EDITORS: Before you assign or publish an article, ask yourself, 'Will this article be more enjoyable than the Gawker blog post viciously mocking the article?'" which linked to Robert Stacy McCain, who was (obviously) linking to Gawker. At Gawker, Tom Scocca was eking humor out of paraphrasing the Esquire piece in plain speech, with lines like: "Tom Junod can name several famous women who are 42 who he would be willing to fuck. Right in their 42-year-old vaginas. Cameron Diaz. Sofia Vergara. Leslie Mann. Amy Poehler. He would fuck these women, despite their age, and even share a joke with them, because the 42-year-old woman, she is a person, or at least a person-like idea...." Which is funny, but it's only funny because Junod gave him something to paraphrase and the will to do it. But think about it: Much literary humor is done through the device of taking what would be crude to say and putting it in an elaborate form. Anyone can translate it back into the crude. And much internet hu

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And so — in the middle of a word — a post fragment ends. I'm tired of looking at that Draft post in my list of posts. I can't throw it out and I can't finish it. I'm just publishing it because I'm amused that my effort ended so abruptly. I felt some urge to defend Tom Junod, but not quite that much.

A lot of this (and I didn't read either article. Life is too short) has to do with the trend toward younger and younger women in movies and TV and other celebrity haunts. Think about the movie careers of Barbara Stanwyck, who was making big movies in her 40s and then had another career in TV, and Joan Crawford, who made "Mildred Pierce," her oscar movie at 41. Both women had affairs with Robert Wagner as a young man, Stanwyck for four years. Both affairs were kept secret but, in his biography, he is grateful to both for helping him grow up and learn sophistication.

Today, if a women is over 30, she seems to be considered washed up. Plastic surgery has kept some women looking 30 when they are 50 but the age thing is much too important these days.

There was even such a movie 36 years ago. Movies are made for 14 year olds now. male and female.

Okay, this is breed registrations, but while the majority of pit bulls may not be registered, a lot of other breeds don't register most of their individuals.

Now, most commented on in news? Yeah, maybe. Most feared? Perhaps. Most seen? No way. Every where I have seen dogs, retrievers, poodles, hounds (Beagles in particular, but basset, daschunds, and larger hounds too) and a few yappy dogs dominate the types seen every day, no matter where I have lived.

I suppose that captures one of the unique features of blogging. The idea used to be that, if you were going to publish something, then it should be polished and finished. That was especially true for lawprofs -- articles submitted for publication in law reviews were often the product of multiple drafts, all duly noted in an early footnote with thanks to those who had plowed through them. The only exception was for posthumously published writings, typically literary works where the author was, alas, unavailable to do that.

I think the deeper truth about Tom Junod's article is that the most alluring women in the world are about 15 years younger than the man contemplating them (unless that leads to a round number, in which case add or subtract a couple years to arrive at a more thoughtful sounding number).

Younger women are more attractive than older women. This has been apparent to everyone since the dawn of time. One of the more absurd aspects of feminism has been the attempt to deny/change this simple biological fact.

You make the subject over-specific for the purpose of examination. Here, it's: 42-year-old women are ideal. Obviously, not all 42-year-old women are great and there are many great non-42-year-old women, but you posit it anyway and you run with it.

Step outside the area where we're concerned about sexism and you can see how it works.

The perfect day is… blah blah blah… there is milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges too… or whatever.

Yes, there are other good (even better) days and what's so special about that day you are fixated on? You could take umbrage at the specificity.

It's poetic. It's a device.

If people didn't get so darned mad at nothing, they might enjoy the essay. It's rather typical Esquire fare, actually.

The real tragedy is that a once great and serious magazine that published Tom Wolfe, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Michael ("Dispatches") Herr, and others is reduced to tarting up its cover with Cameron Diaz who is promoting her tawdry new movie...a bomb. (Why aren't feminists howling about that mess?)

As for the cover design itself, George Lois who designed literally dozens of masterpiece covers for Esquire must be reeling.

Tom Runod stared at a bowl of carefully arranged oranges at the center of a house in a carefully arranged suburb. The smell of honeysuckle and new Honda Accord interiors hung in the air. Lace doilies adorned the table.

Somewhere in another room, a surprisingly loving pit-bull rested his head upon a baby girls' chest. Somewhere, a 42ish woman sighed and it reminded someone else of a delivery truck's brakes.

Runod had bartered for the dog not 3 months earlier, exchanging "Jace' for a car stereo and another dog he was watching for his cousin's girlfriend who probably skipped town without paying the rent because her baby daddy violated parole.

Runod was under deep cover, cover so deep he went places....places only a writer could go.

Arnold Gingrich wanted Esquire to have "ample hair on it's chest, to say nothing of adequate cojones." Does Juno's article pass this standard? I learned to read long fiction by reading material written by Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe and published in Esquire. I don't think this is exactly "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold."

When I was growing up in the 1970s, Playboy was quite common, but it was not coffee table reading. It was bathroom reading. Am still not sure who hid several issues in the basement bathroom behind all the towels.

What to think? I think it proves there is no need to read Esquire. Or reason. I will say that older women can be very attractive. I also recall reading some 40 or so years ago that plain-looking women can be better in bed because they're willing to work at being better in bed.